>> hi there. breaking news to talk about out of afghanistan. america's largest nuclear bomb dropped on an isis target. but what the mission a success? our team of correspondents and analysts are standing by. msnbc's hallie jackson is at the white house, corbin kubai and jack jacobs is here as well. haie, let's stt with you. this bomb was dropped on afghanistan. is there anything more to tell us? >> reporter: it was sent to the pentagon as related to details about the bomb strike. you heard the press secretary relating a little bit of the strategic objective which is to destroy tunnels used by isis. we have had that reporting. there were questions asked of the press secretary about whether the president himself directly authorized this strike.

the reference was to ask the pentagon. there were questions about what the president did in the hours and days leading up to this action. again, refer to the pentagon. there were questions about the tick-tock. how did this go down? was the situation room involved? did he have to have special briefings, et cetera? again, ask the pentagon. there are still certain questions to be answered about the commander in chief's actions today. we tried to shout a little bit to the press secretary after he left the room. no response. clearly one of the dominant themes in today's briefing. >> courtney, is this a strike that has to be authorized by the president, or is this a strike that can be authorized by the pentagon alone? >> no, this is actually a strike authorized by the battlefield commander, general nicholson, in afghanistan. it didn't have to go to the general or the president. this is a first of its kind strike. it's the first time this large a mission has been used, but the

intel has an existing mission in afghanistan to go after isis k, isis khorasan. the four-star general has the authority as the commander there to use the appropriate munitions to carry out his tasks and his operations. so while this is a significant milestone that they used this munition on the battlefield, a 21,000-pound bomb, it is not something that would necessarily have to go to the white house for approval. they're able to do it there on the ground. for all intents and purposes, when you're the battlefield commander there, this is really no different than dropping a smaller bomb. they just used the larger one in this case because of the target that they were going after. it was a large complex, it had a complex tunnel system underneath, and there was, what u.s. military officials were telling me, a significant contingent of isis fighters there. so the u.s. military wanted to go in, take out the target and leave with the minimum number of

civilian casualties as possible, hopefully none. >> and courtney, this is the largest bomb we have in our arsenal that is not a nuclear bomb. it's nowhere near as powerful as a nuclear bomb, according to the reporting that you sent out. but talk to me about how powerful this actually is and what they were intending to do with it. this is something that explodes in the air? >> no. so this is something that -- it's not -- i think there are some people who think that it's what people often call a bunker buster which goes down and pen traits the earth and would take out a tunnel. that is not that. this is what the military calls a pressure munition. it would go down, hit its target and then by virtue of the pressure that it would hit, it would collapse it in upon itself again. so when you're talking about something that's both a tunnel system and then something that's over on the ground, including some of the fighters, this was a very efficient weapon to take out a large area, a large number of fighters and housing and whatnot with one strike.

the u.s. military has been saying that they believe this is the first time that this large 21,000-pound bomb has ever been used on the battlefield. the military may have other larger weapons or munitions, that is, bombs in their arsenal. we just aren't aware that any of them have ever been used, ever been employed on the battlefield like this one was today. >> and colonel jack jacobs, talk to me about the threat of isis in eastern afghanistan. they were using bunkers, they were using tunnels to try to thicken their defense, try to avoid any sort of strikes. >> yeah, they're a continuing prlem, a, because of the terrain, and b, because of the remoteness of the area. we have to have lots of people on the ground in order to chase them around all the time. in the wintertime they get close to the border, even go over the border and spend the winter over in pakistan. they dig tunnels in the rock. they're extremely difficult to get out. you have to put typically

special operations forces on the ground. in order to get them, this is an efficient way to get them. they have been a continuous problem to afghan and american forces, and they've been building themselves up over time, and they've been coordinating with other smaller units in the area in other valleys, and it becomes -- it's become increasingly difficult. we saw this opportunity because of drones and satellite imagery. we knew where they were and decided to use this weapon. i want to just expand a little bit on something courtney said about bunker busters. i don't know about this one, the 43, but certainly the 57, the larger bomb, which is about 30,000 pounds, that can be fit with a penetrator that extends beyond the nose of the bomb. that has a delay fuse on it, can

go right through rock on a delay and then detonate inside. as courtney said, this wasn't that. this was to perform the kind of mission she talked about and to get some surface explosion as well so no penetrator on this. but it is a very large bomb, and i can see our using these again and again as targets of opportunity crop up. we're now into the fighting season, so we're liable to see lots more targets in eastern afghanistan. >> and the images we're looking at of this bomb on our screens right now are certainly striking. let's bring in general barry mccaffery. general, how significant is it for the trump administration to use such a weapon at this time? >> pretty significant. you know, i was looking at jack jacobs. both of us have spent a lot of time crawling around in the mud with some machine gun hammering by your ears. we love the united states air force. when they use these significant

munitions, they have a whole series of them, as jack says. some of them are nuclear development facilities, but something similar has been used since vietnam in a smaller size. they're just devastating. they're a terror weapon, so i think it's another signal to isis, to the taliban, to al qaeda in afghanistan that you can burrow in the rocks, but we'll come get you day or night without warning. good signal to these insurgent forces. >> general, what do you make of the white house passing off all inquiries of this to d.o.d. that the -- at this time? >> again, it's another signal. a problem is a lack of forces. you have general mattis, who is experienced in field commanding himself, they're going to take appropriate action rapidly within constrained rules of

engagement. so i think it's a healthy signal. you can't run 2.2 million men and women of the armed forces out of the national security council. i think decentralize authority within set limits of a rule of law is an appropriate way to go. and this bomb, this is good news for the ground combat forces, army and marine, in afghanistan. >> we also have richard engel who is joining us from our london bureau which is our chief correspondent. talk to us about what you've seen there and the threat of isis in that region. we've always heard about al qaeda in afghanistan, but isis is now making some pretty significant inroads? >> reporter: if you'll remember about a month ago, there was an isis raid in a hospital in kabul, and about 30 people were killed, and afghan special forces had to be helicopter lifted in.

they were dropped on a rooftop and then there was a long standoff that ended with many casualties. so isis has been able to carry out hit and run attacks in kabul for quite some time. they also, however, have one stronghold and that is this area in nangahar province. you could say it's one of the last strongholds in the country and the u.s. has been bombing the them there significantly. what we saw today was escalation. as general mccaffery was saying earlier, it is not just the bomb. there are many ways to deliver lots of explosives onto an enemy. but this one giant bomb makes a lot of noise, it feels like an earthquake when it hits from miles away, according to military experts, and it is terrifying. so it also has a psychological impact on the taliban or al qaeda, or, in this case, isis that a significant escalation

has happened. >> courtney, do we have any idea about civilians who could have been in that area at that time? >> we don't know yet. the u.s. military doesn't have their battle damage assessment, so we don't even know how many isis fighters maify have been killed in this strike. they did say it was a rather remote area. it was not surrounded by a village or any kind of civilian area. so they're hopeful -- they always take as many measures as possible to try to minimize any civilian impact, casualties or damage. they're hoping in this case there were not any, but we don't know for sure yet. >> courtney, the pentagon, the d.o.d. is being questioned at least a little bit by folks who say civilian casualties are up in the recent months, that some sort of policy seems to have changed. can you flush that out a little bit for us? >> that's been highlighted recently last month. on may 17 a large strike in mosul.

there were several other strikes in syria and iraq battle plan, battlefield. the use ice mi.s. maintains gen mattis, general townsend in iraq, they all maintain there's been no change in the rules of engagement that would lead tie loosening of the rules for civilian casualties. western mosul is one example. isis has been using some tactics in recent weeks where they herd civilians into buildings and then they put snipers on top of the buildings or in the buildings and they fire at iraqi security forces that are advancing on the position, sort of drawire, drawing iraqi fire, drawing airstrikes and putting those civilians, of course, right in the path. so there has been an uptick in civilian casualties. but u.s. military forces both here and in iraq maintain there has been no change in the rules of engagement, katy. >> this white house, donald

trump, campaigned on this all the time that he was going to be a nonconventionalist. is this a shift that we're seeing where donald trump is becoming more of a traditional republican hawk? >> reporter: yeah, i think based on our reporting, the president campaigned on his america first foreign policy. that said, i think those outside the administration might want to see more points of evidence before connecting those dots. in this particular situation, as you heard courtney talk about, this is something that apparently, at least according to reporting as it stands now, was a decision that could be made by the battlefield commanders, by the pentagon without the approval necessarily of the president, though there are some questions that remain about what the president knew about this, how he was briefed, when he was briefed, et cetera. we're working to find those answers out. i do think it is a question worth asking as this administration's foreign milita military moves forward.

>> could this be another signal to north korea that america is willing to do what's necessary to eradicate terrorists and then beyond? >> i personally think it's unlikely and irrational to actually think of conventional preemptive strike on north korea nuclear facilities. not going to happen. it would be massive amount of casualties. i think we're trying to give them some pressure ternally, but noh korea is going to be solved by defensive ballistic missile systems and collective agreements among the neighbors, and they're not giving up their nook. so giving back to this bomb in afghanistan, the problem is the national army and police are coming apart. this war is going badly. we have a minor footprint on the ground of nato forces. it's not looking good. afghanistan is on the verge of coming apart in the permanent

civil war again and acting as a potential haven as threats for their neighbors. that's the issue. what do you do? i don't think the trump administration made up their mind yet. it's not clear to me what the answer is. but in the short run, pounding back at these people serves american interests. >> what do you do? the question on everyone's mind. dr. barry mccaffery, courtney kubai and colonel jack jacobs, hallie jackson. the potential implications of china, nato and syria. secretary of state rex tillerson weighs in right after the break. transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected.

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that was then, this is now. the president's evolving approach to foreign policy creating whiplash in the west wing. trump reversing course on a number of key policy issues and campaign promises from nato to china. but the white house is saying it's not the president who has changed. >> what should the american people make of these shifts and are there any policy areas that are non-negotiable? >> well, i think, you know, respectfully, i think you can look at what you're referring to as a shift in a lot of ways. if you look at what's happened, it's those entities or individuals in some cases are issues evolving toward the president's position. >> every day i'm happier and happier that i studied philosophy in college and understand semantics.

mike allen, executive editor from axis, joins me from nbc. a lot of word games from sean spicer saying it's not trump who has changed but everybody else has changed. what do you make of that? >> trump is the sun and all the planets whether it's chechnya or china. you were on the campaig trail when trump made these origina statements, and you know the president is moving toward a more sensible, moderate, globalist direction, whatever you want to call it, and the white house says, no, he's not changing, that there have been changes in these institutions. that also is true. but this is all part of what axios calls operation normal, and that is the effort by many people in the west wing to get the president to be a more conventional, moderate republican. some people were talking about you could do a graphic with president trump's head and

president george w. bush 4-1 -- xli's body. the president is getting great approval for this and he responds to that. >> the word whiplash when you talk about these things. one is nato, the other is china. nato he said repeatedly on the campaign trail, it is obsolete. now he's calling it a great alliance. and when you're talking about china, he said repeatedly, over and over again, that china was a currency manipulator. every day he said this. multiple times a day. and now he's saying china are not currency manipulators. there is also his opinion on the export-import bank and janet yellen. how do you explain that to your supporters? >> reporter: actually, it's very easy to explain. two things. one is, as we know, the forces

who are -- would push him in a more traditional direction including jared kushner, son-in-law, ivanka trump, carey cohen. voices like that are ascendent in the west wing. but the world just looks differently in the west wing than it does on the campaign trail. for esident obama, the world looked very different from the situation room than it did from iowa. we had president obama very aggressive in his use of drones, something that candidate obama would have been very allergic to. >> mike, can i interrupt for one second, because donald trump's nationalistic tendencies, though, go way back. they go years back. is that something that he can just suddenly do away with because now he is in the oval ofl office, or are these things going to start to peek their heads once again down the line? >> that's a very good point. this may well be episodic, and

we've talked here on msnbc about how you could say the trump doctrine is situational, the trump doctrine is flexible, and the trump doctrine is evolving as the world does. and so in trump world, there is no permanent changes. so what we're pointing to today are indicators, and so that's why we're pointing to the people that have an influence with the president. the external stimuli the president is responding to. the new intelligence that he has, a president has a lot more information and data than a candidate does. we're told that the president was very impressed with the options and briefing that the generals gave him ahead of syria. >> we're going to talk a lot more about who exactly is influencing the president in this white house and whether the power centers are changing. and if they are, who is the person or people to watch? that's coming up. it's a bit of a tease for later on this hour. mike allen of axios, appreciate

your time as always. >> thank you. joining me now, chris holland of maryland. senator, you've been watching along with us. we've seen the president change his position pretty dramatically on key issues in the past 24 hours. could these changes signal something that the democrats would be open to hearing, something that would allow them to work with this president going forward? >> well, we don't know, katy. i mean, certainly the president'somments with respect to the nato alliance are welcoming. after all he used to call it obsolete and now he recognizes the importance of the nato alliance. but i think what worries people and not just democrats but also republicans is president trump's policy seems to be shaped by the last person in the room that he spoke to. and there is no assurance that tomorrow he won't flip back 180 degrees on any one of these issues. and that creates great uncertainty and uncertainty, at least in international affairs,

also creates dangers for the united states. so i think a lot of people remain concerned about the credibility of this administration because what they say tomorrow may be very different than what they just said today. >> you're right to say there has been a lot of consistency coming out of this white house. but who are you looking at in the west wing that you would hope gets the ear of the president more and more? >> look, what i would like to see is this administration go back to some of the things that trump talked about on the campaign trail that can actually bring people together. so on domestic policy, that would mean focusing on modernizing our national infrastructure. that's the one issue that he talked about on election night. democrats in the senate have put forward a plan to modernize our infrastructure. we've said to the president, join us in this plan. we haven't heard anything from this white house. instead they're focused on blowing up the affordable care

act. we thought that was over after it went down in flames in the house. they're trying to resurrect that now. so even when it comes to domestic policy, they're just all over the map. look at the president's budget. the president's budget actually targets many of the working people around the country that he said he was going to be the champion for. so, katy, i think the issue is where ultimately does the president come down on these issues and priorities? and the concern, and we're seeing it every day, is that he doesn't have any set agenda, it just happens to be whoever he talked to last. and that makes it much more difficult on domestic policy, it makes it dangerous when it comes to foreign policy. >> senator chris van holland, democrat of maryland. thank you so much for your time, sir. >> thank you. next, is war being waged against trump's chief strategist? i'll speak to reporters from the "new york times" and politico

why steve bannon's days may be numbered. that leads us to microsoft's poll question of the day, do you think president trump will fire steve bannon? go to pulse.msnbc.com and we'll check the results a little later in the hour.

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today, like all other days, there is turmoil in the west wing. and it's continuing to center around donald trump's most controversial adviser steve bannon. new reports continuing to suggest bannon is on the way out. reports bolstered by the president himself who told the new york post, i like steve, but -- and is now telling the wall street journal that bannon is just, quote, a guy who works for me. my sources are telling me that despite making that make-good meeting between bannon and jared kushner that things are not good for the former breitbart head. he is now being advised to lay low and wait out the storm. but can he? consider three things. one, no one in trump's political orbit have won a battle against him. two, trump's poll numbers are in

the tank, and trump pays attention to his poll numbers. bannon is being scapegoated for all the kroecontroversies that him there. three, headlines, headlines and more headlines. it is very hard to lay low when you're under a big, bright spotlight. joining me now, "new york times" reporter jeremy peters. jeremy, you've got a lot of reporting on this, but let's start with something a source told me, this feels very much like the time when the general was being ousted, getting all this flak for being in contact with ukraine. >> it's been overwhelming. in fact, the only reason this rose to donald trump's attention is because of the headlines. he wasn't quite aware, katy, that the fighting between his

son-in-law and his chief strategist had grown so bitter. the problem is, though, as long as we're talking about the problems of perception here, steve bannon was perceived as taking credit for some of the trump administration's key idealogies and agenda items. even though that wasn't success that steve bannon himself sought out, he was seen as someone who was kind of hogging the limelight. as much as he tried to push back against that, it was almost too little too late. so the question is, can he recover from that in donald trump's eye when donald trump believes only one person is worthy of attention, and that is himself. >> on that point, ken, is it fair to -- people keep calling bannon the protector of donald trump's nationalistic policies, his nationalistic tendencies. is it fair to call steve bannon that, or is this something that trump ultimately created?

>> i think trump ultimately created it, but what bannon did very effectively was hone that message down the stretch. you're on the trail and you heard him hit those points over and over again. >> he stayed on prompter is what he did. >> exactly. he gave the same speech over and over again which is something you didn't hear from him earlier in the campaign. bannon deserves some credit for that. even more so, he was kind of the liaison to a populist conservative base, where the energy was in the conservative base. you asked an earlier guest what happens if trump continues to drift away from that populist base and becomes a little more interventionist, embraces nato, refuses to call china a currency manipulator? do those people start to turn on him? i think the answer is yes, and i think it will be even more yes if bannon gets the boot. >> do you believe, though, that's the case? do you really believe donald trump supporters were those who had an idealogy, or were they people who just liked him and liked the idea he was going to go into washington and get

things done however he needed to. they believed he would work with democrats, they believed he would be able to make deals, protect jobs. it doesn't matter if he's not a card-carrying nationalist as steve bannon is trying to paint him to be or that many people were saying steve bannon is trying to paint him to be. jeremy? >> i do not think so. i don't think voters on the streets give one lick about the impo import, i don't think they know what it is. i don't think they care about china a currency. these esoteric debates unfolding in the wall street journal are not something that affects their pocketbook. voters respond to tangible things, and unless donald trump fails to deliver on the jobs he promised to bring back, he's not going to have a political problem here. people, katy, you are exactly right, voted for an idea. they didn't vote for an

idealogy. donald trump doesn't have an idealogy. he's a tnsactional person, and they understand that. and that's why they're willing to givm ch a long leash. >> if bannon does end up leaving, that's still very much a big "f if, how much of a an idealogy is he? >> people who did want to see the idealogy, who did want to see the base, they'll feel shackled. bannon had performed a little bit of a mitigation role when it came to breitbart's critical coverage of the administration and of jared kushner. he asked him to tamp it down. what happens when he's out? they would certainly seem to lose that ability to influence some of this conservative media, i think you would see, not just from a personal perspective, breitbart sort of spurned because their guy was booted out

of the white house, but i think you would see from an idealogical perspective, some of these groups and media outlets really coming after trump in a way we hadn't seen before, a way that would affect the base even if the base doesn't know the details of the import-export bank or china's currency manipulation. they know enough to know that he's starting to turn more towards the establishment that they were voting against. >> and if you're asking yourself who takes over if bannon leaves and who gains influence, all you have to do is take a look at the screen right over here and look at the "a" team. who is next to ivanka and jared other than gary cohen and dina powell. my experts say they are the ones a massing more influence inside the trump administration right now. two more moderate voices. we'll see how that plays out. thank you guys both so much for being here today. >> thanks, katy.

let's get a checkn our miosoft polls questio of the day. do y think donald trump will fire steve bannon? so far 65% of you say yes, confident he's going to do it. 35% of you say no. still time to weigh in, though, at pulse.msnbc.com. for the first time since the video went viral, you know the one i'm talking about, the family of the attorney dragged off a united flight in chicago is talking about what happens next.

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in chicago, the passenger in that viral video is gearing up for a court battle. earlier today we heard from david dao's attorney and his daughter. >> airlines, united in particular, have bullied us. >> what happened to my dad should never have happened to any human being. >> dr. dao's attorney is also revealing his client is undergoing reconstructive surgery after he was violently dragged from his seat and forcibly removed from the aircraft. dao's lawyer says his client has a concussion, broken nose and broken teeth. cnbc's phil lebeau is in chicago. phil, it seems like they're going both the airlines and the city of chicago? >> yep. chicago is not getting the attention as the airlines on a national level, but you have three officers who are on leave

right now that are part of what the dao family is going to be going after in court, potentially at some point, unless there is some settlement beforehand. they say any way you look at this from start to finish, this was so poorly handled and is so wrong on so many different levels that you can just tell from listening to that press conference today, they know they have the hammer and they're using that hammer, and i would not be surprised, katy, that if we see another press conference featuring dr. david dao, which they say at some point we will hear from him, i will be surprised if that happens any time soon. i think the next order of business for both -- certainly for united and potentially for the city of chicago is to settle this as quickly as possible. >> his lawyer was certainly making all that he could out of the attention that this story has gotten, taking asuc time as he could with those national cameras on him. the airline, though, has had to release a couple of statements in response to this. their first one was widely panned. now there's another one saying

that they are expressing their sincerest apology to the doctor and adding that united ceo oscar munoz and the company called dr. dao on numerous occasions to express their deepest apologies. how is this affecting the airline long term? >> well, it probably won't impact the airline in terms of the number of passengers, and that's because with the somewhat lack of competition, if you will, katy, if you're in certain cities and it's a united hub and you're going somewhere else, your choices are fairly limited. and that's not going to change any time soon. it doesn't mean that people are crazy about what they see with united, and yeah, their reputation has been battered and it will be a long time before they can restore that reputation. having said that, it is, to a certain extent, a captured, closed market when it comes to the airline industry in this country. there are only a few markets where there is a competition. >> so what incentive do they have to truly change here and put passengers above all else? >> well, you could make an argument they don't have to have

any incentives. but no, i think they realize just how bad this is. in those markets where it's highly competitive, let me give you an example. going over to china. that is the number one asian market for all the airlines. they all want to be there. but united has the most routes and the most business there. it does not want to run the risk as being perceived as having no respect at all for passengers by not trying to properly address this situation. so they need to get this taken care of as quickly as possible, certainly get it off the front pages and off the news headlines that we see every day. >> cnbc's phil lebeau. appreciate your time. >> you bet. next the president's support of foreign policy. does it change the game on e international stage? if so, how? i'll ask former secretary of state john kerry, next. i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation, in case i decide to go from kid-friendly to kid-free.

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weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. top of the news right now. that bombing in nangarhar, afghanistan, the u.s. dropped a gbu-43 bomb from a u.s. aircraft. it is one of the lgest non-nuclear bombs the u.s. has in its arsenal. they dropped it on a bunch of bunkers they suspect was being used by isis. here's donald trump reacting to that. >> i'm very, very proud of the people. really another successful job. we're very, very proud of our military. just like we're proud of the folks in this room, we are so

proud of our military. and it was another successful event. >> did you authorize it, sir? >> everybody knows exactly what happened, and what i do is i authorize my military. we have the greatest military in the world, and they've done a good job, as usual. we have given them total authorization and that's what they're doing. frankly, that's why they've been so successful lately. if you look at what's happened over the last eight weeks and compare that to what's happened over the last eight years, you'll see there is a tremendous difference. a tremendous difference. so we have incredible leaders in the military, and we have incredible military, and we are very proud of them. and this was another very, very successful mission. thank you very much. >> does it send a message to north korea? >> i don't know if it sends a message. it doesn't make a difference if it does or not. the problem will be taken care of. i will say this, i think china

has really been working very hard. i have really gotten to like and respect, as you know, president xi. he's a terrific person. we spent a lot of time together in florida. and he's a very special man. so we'll see how it goes. i think he's going to try very hard. thank you. thank you very much. >> president trump answering a few questions from reporters while having a roundtable with rst responders. again, he's responding to what is top of the news right now, that moab bomb that the u.s. dropped on eastern afghanistan on what they believe were isis targets. donald trump was asked did he authorize that strike, and he says everybody knows exactly what happened, that he authorizes the military to carry out such strikes, so it seems like he did not personally authorize this strike. joining me now is john finer, a former chief of staff to secretary of state john kerry,

and he is live with us from boston. john, thank you for joining us. you were just watching alongside us donald trump responding and reacting to that large bomb that was dropped in afghanistan. he was asked whether or not it was intended to send a message to north korea, and he said he didn't know if it was or not but that north korea is a problem, and it's a problem that will be taken care of. what is your reaction? >> well, thanks, katy. what we have is another in a recent series of actions taken by the united states and either authorized or ordered by the president that are significant but that are totally unexplained in terms of how they are being conducted in order to advance american interests or wa strhat strategy is being pursued. when you go back and think about the yemen raid which unfortunately led to the tragic death of a u.s. service member, or the strikes last week that i think were rightly praised by the foreign policy establishment, at least in the

immediate term. now we have another action that's taken place, the use of this weapon that we have not used before, which the president seems to want to be applauded for, but without providing any real explanation about why and how it fits into information ab why or how it fits into strategy. he's hardly said a word about afghanistan since he became president and he is rightly saying we should be proud of our troops. but i wish we had more information. >> what do you make of this administration's foreign pocy? we keep getting a lot of mixed messaging from everybody, from secretary of state rex tillerson to the u.n. ambassador nikki haley and sean spicer. is there a foreign policy in place within this white house? >> the mixed messenger in chief is president trump. some of the recent steps and announcements that he's made, reversing positions that he had, if he's going from incoherent

and wrong its face on one that makes more sense, that's a good thing. what is troubling to those of us paying attention to this and probably the rest of the world is the utter lack of predictability about where the president will come down or the administration will come down on any given issue on any given time. the president has said he does not want to be predictable and he particularly points to military operations. that's not a bad thing but there is a benefit to predictability and to people understanding what our policy is. if countries don't know what we will tolerate and won't tolerate, there is a very real risk that they will transgress certain lines without our knowledge and that can lead to problems that nobody wants. so clarity would be a welcome change. i don't see it happening any time soon. >> i want to get your thoughts on secretary tillerson who was in moscow yesterday and he held a meeting with his counterpart,

sergei lavrov. did you find out anything that you needed to find out? in your experience since you work so closely with john kerry, how did that meeting go? >> i'm not a big letter grader. on a pass/fail, secretary tillerson certainly passed. he gave a very credible performance standing next to lavrov. he said things about not only russia's role in syria with regard to the use of chemical weapons and the future of assad, but also some very tough things about russia's interference in our own election which was important to say. unfortunately, the troubling part is that they don't seem to have produced any real clarity on a diplomatic way forward to try to end the war. the president has rightly expressed outrage and alarm that we see on you are television screen of those caught up.

those images have been on tv for five years. this is a new development for him is another question. what we don't have is a path. until that happens, these image there's continue to be on our screen. i hope they will look at diplomacy to end the war. >> former chief of staff to john kerry. appreciate your time. next, the story that has been lost for the most part during this wild week of nonstop news. the russia investigation. where it stands after the break. first some good news for parents who wish they could be a fly on their kids' wall. amazon is about to make your life a little easier. amazon has release ad new dashboard that gives parents insight to what their kids are doing online. it provides details on how long their kids are spending on kindle and tablets. how long they spend with books and videos and what websites

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one more thing before we leave you, an investigation into russia's election meddling is still underway despite congress being on recess. just this morning, carter page told abc news that potential

discussions with the russian ambassador may have happened. >> i never offered that, no, nothing along those lines. absolutely not. topics, i don't remember. we'll see what comes out in this fisa transcript. >> that he may have discussed sanctions specifically. yesterday, vice chairman of the senate investigation mark warner of virginia addressed reports that a fisa court the granted approval for carter page to be surveiled after he left the campaign. >> i can't comment on specific investigations. i can't comment on the fisa warrant. but if a fisa warrant has been issued, it is a very, very serious matter. >> then this. nbc news reporting that former campaign manager paul manafort may register as a foreign agent for his past political work in ukraine. also, yesterday the secretary o state was in moscow face to face

with vladimir putinnd his russian counter part, sergei lavrov. by the end, he said u.s. relations are at a low point saying there's very little trust between our two countries. watch that. >> let's look at our microsoft poll question. do you think president trump will fire steve bannon? so far -- 68% said you say yes. 32% of you say no. sorry about that slight delay there. thank you for voting. and that wraps things up for me this hour. kate snow picks things up right now. >> good afternoon. top stories that we're following at this hour. let's start with that breaking news, the pentagon. what is nicknamed the mother of all bombs dropped on isis in afghanistan. what they were after and why now? all the latest coming up in a moment. a short time from now, president trump will leave washington, going back down to mar-a-lago,

florida. if you have deja vu, the travel costs are catching up to president obama's and we're only 83% into the presidency. and more information on the man dragged down aisle of the united airlines flight over the weekend. hallie is joining us, and executive editor, and miles, the white house columnist for the him. let me start with you. the president talked really tough about isis during campaign. we all remember that. is this unexpected that they would drop this weaponry? >> no. within the last 20 minutes or so, the president himself talking more about this military